The English Language Curriculum

INTRODUCTION

The English Language Curriculum offered at ACS (Independent) to the students in the Express Stream take reference from the syllabus prescribed by the Ministry of Education. 

As mentioned in the syllabus document, here at ACS (Independent), we are committed to developing 21st Century competencies in our students, especially in terms of developing Language and communicative skills, to a more sophisticated level.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Taking reference from the Framework for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes, the MOE EL Syllabus 2020 seeks to develop these competencies in our learners through the teaching and learning of EL to enable them to be:

• Empathetic communicators

• Discerning readers

• Creative inquirers

In this respect, the English Department provides opportunities for authentic experiences offered by our unique ACSian Learning Environment which includes (1) our strong English-speaking culture, (2) our strong Christian culture and (3) our enterprising and innovative culture.  This has allowed us to show real-world relevance of the subject in applied learning and lived experiences on a daily basis.  Some examples of how our school culture translates to learning outcomes are

• Daily Devotions at the start of the day that promote the use of empathic language and discernment which is strengthened through active listening and meaning-making.

• Publicity of school events and student-led Initiatives that provide an excellent platform for students to display their creative energy and inventive use of language to appeal to an audience.

• High quality of student presentations across all levels and all disciplines.

In the English Language classroom, language learning and application is brought to a greater level of sophistication with challenging tasks.  Some examples are

• Creative assignment of advertisement posters in Year 1. Students also come up with questions that discerns the poster as a visual text.

• Digital literacy, creativity as well as empathy are promoted through students in Year 3 having to record a 2-minute Video Log about a place in Singapore that is significant to them.

• In Year 1 and Year 2, the annual Oral Communication Examination takes the form of a group interview where three students engage with the examiner at the same time, practising turn-taking and discernment and empathy to present their point of view while being cognizant of the ideas shared by the other candidates. Through this process, students learn how to listen actively to different perspectives and communicate confidently, effectively and sensitively.

• The Year 3 students also engage in Debates to hone their persuasive speaking skills and develop their critical and analytical skills to form opinions and support them with credible evidence and real-world examples.

ASSESSMENT MODES

• Listening and Viewing: Paper 3: Listening Comprehension; Paper 4: Oral Examination

• Reading and Viewing : Paper 2: Reading Comprehension

• Speaking and Representing: Paper 4: Oral Examination

• Writing and Representing: Paper 1: Situational and Continuous Writing

• Grammar: Paper 1: Editing

• Vocabulary: Paper 1: Situational and Continuous Writing; Paper 2: Reading Comprehension

TEACHING AND LEARNING APPROACHES

Fundamental to the rich incidental learning promoted by our unique ACSian Learning Environment is the teaching and learning that happens in the English Language classrooms.  As expressed in the MOE EL Syllabus, the teaching and learning adopts the CLLIPS and ACoLADE principles and practices.

CLLIPS, which refers to the principles of EL teaching and learning, directs teachers to apply knowledge of the disciplinarity of EL to guide our students towards a deeper understanding of the language and its use, and facilitate the transfer of learning.

Contextualization involves designing learning tasks and activities for students to learn the language in an authentic and meaningful context.

Learner-centredness puts students at the heart of the teaching and learning process and empowers them.  It also requires employing effective pedagogies to engage students, strengthen their language development and stretch their potential.

Learning-focused interaction entails providing a rich and responsive learning environment for communication. It explicitly fosters oral communication skills and focuses on achieving learner and learning outcomes. It actively engages students by encouraging participation, interaction and boosting their confidence in the use of language.

Integration involves teaching the receptive skills, productive skills, grammar and vocabulary in an integrated way, with one set of skills building on another, using texts from relevant print, non-print and digital networked sources, to provide different perspectives and meaningful connections, including to the wider contexts of language use.

Process Orientation sees the teacher modelling, scaffolding and students differentiating the learning processes for the development of language skills and knowledge about language, while guiding learners to put together their final spoken, written and/or multimodal products.

Spiral Progression is achieved when the teacher instructs and revises and revisits to reinforce learning skills, grammatical items, structures and various types and forms of texts, including multimodal and hybrid texts, at increasing levels of difficulty and sophistication.

ACoLADE refers to EL teaching processes that guide teachers in the design of instruction and enactment of learning experiences in the 21st century EL classroom.  It is the process of raising Awareness, structuring Consolidation, facilitating assessment for Learning, enabling Application, guiding Discovery, and instructing Explicitly.

Together, CLLIPS and ACoLADE help teachers think more deeply about planning and teaching EL to provide all students with access to the richest curriculum a school can offer. EL teachers use CLLIPS and ACoLADE thoughtfully and with flexibility in their instructional planning and classroom teaching.